Page:Tourist's Maritime Provinces.djvu/123

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HALIFAX AND ITS ENVIRONS
91

linnets. A child's school-bag hangs on the wall; the child himself was born within the tower. Through a sagging door the visitor glimpses, not guns nor powder-bags, but a kitchen range bristling with pots that emit a wreath of steam.

The drive-ways which search the primal wood are like aisles in a darkened temple into which the sun shines palely. The temple floor has a covering of brown pine-needles. Tall trunks appear in the shadow like sustaining pillars. Through openings that look like windows in the forest the water shows its enchanting green. Once, Scotch soldiers were quartered in this wildwood. Their camp beds were mattressed with heather, which was thrawn out when the regiment returned to Scotland. A scanty bank of it blooms now from which lovers of the wiry little weed pluck surreptitious bunches.

The esplanade by which one returns to the city borders the harbour shore, passing on the way the public baths and the quarters of the Royal Yacht Squadron. Either side of this point fine houses have been demolished and the water-front filled in to make room for the piers, quays and railway terminals which the Dominion is constructing at a cost of $20,000,000 and which will revolutionise municipal traffic conditions. When the works are completed, passengers will alight at the new Union Station at the foot of South Street.

Halifax, wanting in municipal beauty, is rich in